


To Look (To Watch) To See

by virdant



Category: Glee
Genre: Also probably explicit cannibalism, Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Hannibal (TV) Fusion, Blood and Violence, Cannibalism, Empathy, Heavily Implied Cannibalism, M/M, Off-screen reference to past-Klaine
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-12
Updated: 2020-07-12
Packaged: 2021-03-05 03:15:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,334
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25217614
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/virdant/pseuds/virdant
Summary: Blaine has always been good at seeing things from other people’s points of view. When he was a child, he would look at the furrow in his father’s brow and the snatches of conversation would clarify into a story. When he was a teenager, he looked at a boy who spoke of misery and wrote it into a song. And now he’s an adult, and he still sees, and sees, and sees.Sebastian watches.The Glee Hannibal AU - for Seblaine Week 2020 Day 1: College
Relationships: Blaine Anderson/Sebastian Smythe
Comments: 4
Kudos: 25
Collections: Seblaine Week 2020





	To Look (To Watch) To See

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to Dana, who is always so lovely and says things like "what about a Glee Hannibal AU" when I talk about my bad ideas. 
> 
> This totally fits the college prompt because i put the word college in two times or something.

“I didn’t know you liked to cook.”

Sebastian smiles. It’s a thin, easy thing. “Does it surprise you?”

Blaine looks at the dish. Sebastian had given him a French name for the dish, and as much as Blaine enjoyed French food, sometimes Sebastian could be so _much_. Tall and elegant and excessive in that carefully contained way, his every movement carefully placed and contained like a dancer. In that regard, Sebastian choosing to cook his own French food instead of braving the culinary delights that Columbus had to offer isn’t surprising at all. Sebastian would choose to cook his own food, the act a work of art for himself and his guests to enjoy. No, it isn’t surprising at all. Blaine swallows the analysis, instead just offering, “No.”

Sebastian smiles into his wine.

Blaine eyes him back and then sips his own wine. He’s been seeing Dr. Smythe as a psychiatrist for a while now, a necessary condition of his continued employment at Dalton Academy, one of the premier investigative sciences institutions in the country. Blaine teaches forensic psychology and runs their extracurricular choir. 

Blaine attended Dalton for college, years ago. There were plans to become a detective, a forensic scientist, an investigator. Instead, Blaine is back at Dalton after a marriage that never happened, teaching students that he sees shades of himself in everyday, and sitting across from Dr. Sebastian Smythe as they eat dinner.

Sebastian likes cooking. Blaine files the information along with the facts about him. Sebastian is European—Parisian, specifically. It bleeds into his English at times, though for the most part, Sebastian is a chameleon who’s disguised its European origins for American. Sebastian was a surgeon, once, before he switched to psychiatry. Dr. Sebastian Smythe is like the edge of a scalpel: sharp and pointed and piercing deep to hurt and heal in equal measure.

And, after the first time Blaine saw a shrink—after he didn’t get married and moved from New York City back to Ohio and Dalton—he never wanted to see one again. Their too-familiar questions, their incessant need to fix, to patch, to take him and turn him into something else.

Then he got Sebastian.

Sebastian smiles, that smile so much like a scalpel’s blade. He says, “I learned to cook when I moved here, to the United States. Bereft of my Uncle’s cook, I was forced to cook to accommodate the meagre returns of a medical student.”

“Huh.” Blaine stares down at the plate. The red sauce across the meat is bright and lurid. It looks like blood. “You learned well.”

“It was not swift,” Sebastian concedes, but that’s the only concession he makes. 

Blaine doesn’t reply to that. He focuses on chewing, each bite, and when he looks up, Sebastian is watching him steadily, so he stops looking up.

* * *

Blaine closes his eyes and sees.

Sebastian watches Blaine and smiles.

Blaine has always been good at seeing things from other people’s points of view. When he was a child, he would look at the furrow in his father’s brow and the snatches of conversation would clarify into a story. When he was a teenager, he looked at a boy who spoke of misery and wrote it into a song. And now he’s an adult, and he still sees, and sees, and sees.

Too many mirror neurons, they say. Empathy, they say. Blaine always calls it what it is: a keen eye for evidence, and an active imagination that lets him piece everything together. He looks, he closes his eyes, and then he sees.

He sees the murder as if it were happening before his eyes. The scalpel slashing down into the abdomen, the organ cradled carefully in gloved hand, and then the surgical stitches. The Ripper moves like he’s dancing. It should be grotesque; it is grotesque. He looks, and then he _sees_. But not enough. He can’t see enough.

And Sebastian watches.

* * *

Blaine teaches two classes at Dalton Academy. The first is an introductory class; he lectures college freshmen on forensic psychology and the pathology of killers. It’s a mandatory class, and Blaine’s keeps the lectures updated with current murders.

The second is an advanced seminar, held for senior students. It’s a popular class, if only because Blaine will, after listening to students present their theories and analyses, stand before the projection screen and lay out, piece by piece, the scene of the crime and the motivation of the killer. He lays it out like a story. He plays it out like a song. It’s a rare look into a deranged mind, all of the students whisper.

Sebastian stands in the shadows of the doorway and watches Blaine in his seminar.

Blaine is clear and eloquent. He always sees so very clearly, and it shows as he lays out the entire situation. This is what happened. This is what he felt. Everybody’s focus is on him, even as he stands in the shadow cast by the projector. He’s standing in the front of the room, but it seems as though he is invisible despite everybody’s eyes on him.

Sebastian watches.

Sebastian could watch Blaine forever; he could stand here, in the adjacent shadows, and watch as Blaine lifts his hands and gestures. He strides back and forth like he’s dancing. He talks like he’s singing. He flourishes in the darkness, obscured in shadow, where he can look out and see the world with too much clarity. Sebastian thinks he could be content, just watching.

But he knows he would never be satisfied like this.

Sebastian has never been one for just watching. He has always been one for having.

* * *

Blaine’s eyes go distant with memory; he sees the memory of the scenes before him, but he also sees his own memories with vivid clarity. He does not see things through rose-tinted lenses, or through the haze of time. His vision is always clear.

Sebastian watches, and, when Blaine’s eyes are particularly far-seeing, whispers, “Tell me.”

Blaine’s head turns to him slowly. His skin is flush, his eyes bright. He looks at Sebastian, but he does not see, and Sebastian does not smile in response. Blaine’s eyes track, back and forth and back and forth, and then his head lilts forward.

Sebastian cradles the heavy skull and whispers, again, “Tell me.”

The words fall from Blaine’s lips like a song. Blaine sings of a time in the past: of a boy he thought would love him, until he didn’t. Of a house that he thought would hold him, until it didn’t. Of a place where he thought he belonged—

“Until you didn’t,” Sebastian whispers, when Blaine stops. His eyes are still distant, but they turn to Sebastian at those words, and, so slowly, Blaine whispers, “Until I didn’t,” back, and he closes his eyes as Sebastian cradles his skull in his hands and begins to fall.

Sebastian cradles this fragile skull in his hands, and he knows he can shape this brilliant mind like a potter shapes clay. Press his fingers deep and trace the choreography of his dance. He presses a whisper to Blaine’s temple, a promise, a prophecy, and sets to work.

* * *

Blaine sits at his desk at Dalton Academy, and he stares into the distance.

“Blaine,” Sebastian says, from the doorway.

Blaine does not respond.

Sebastian doesn’t smile, but he doesn’t frown either. The room is dark, the lights having turned off. Some kind-hearted passerby seeing Blaine and thinking him asleep, perhaps. Custodial staff not noticing Blaine still at his desk. Blaine sits still, head barely drooped, before the papers before him. He slips forward, on light feet, until he stands before Blaine. Blaine’s eyes are open and distant. The papers on the desk are filled with bodies, familiar in their agony, and Sebastian wonders what Blaine is seeing.

He wonders who Blaine is seeing.

He wonders if Blaine is seeing _him_.

Sebastian cups Blaine’s cheek, presses his thumb gently against the bone until Blaine’s eyelids flutter.

“Sebastian,” he says, when he wakes.

“You fell asleep,” Sebastian replies, his hand still warm on Blaine’s cheek. “And missed our appointment.”

Blaine flushes. 

“I have a 24-hour cancellation policy,” Sebastian continues, and he lets a smile creep into his voice.

“I must be more tired than I thought,” Blaine replies. He looks away.

Sebastian’s hand is still there, on Blaine’s cheek. It is a simple matter to draw it forward so Blaine’s eyes meet his. Blaine’s eyes are like liquid, and when they focus on Sebastian, he thinks he could drown in them.

Sebastian is selfish; he knows this about himself. Part of life is self-mastery, and Sebastian has mastered every inch of himself. He knows what he wants, and he takes it, because he can, because he is capable of it. Blaine, on the other hand, is mired in selfless generosity.

“What do you see?” Sebastian asks.

Blaine looks at the photos spread before them. “He’s watching,” Blaine says.

“Like you do?”

“No.” Blaine’s fingers touch the photos. Despite the light touch, the tips of his fingers leave oils on the glossy prints. “Not like me.” His brow furrows. “Something different. He’s waiting.”

“What are you doing?”

“Searching.”

“For your killer?”

Blaine looks up, turns away. His eyes flutter shut in a parody of rest, and then open again. He looks toward Sebastian again, his gaze searching, tracing his past with unerring clarity. The home he could not stay in. The boy who would not stay with him. They are gone, but Blaine is still searching. 

Sebastian could press. He doesn’t. “You need rest,” Sebastian says. He draws Blaine forward, and Blaine follows. He stands from the bodies before him, and turns his eyes to Sebastian’s and follows.

And Sebastian watches.

* * *

Sebastian’s dining room is covered in shadows. They twist in intimate familiarity as Sebastian serves the meal: loin, a red sauce, and a hand that brushes across Blaine’s shoulder.

Blaine looks at Sebastian, as he serves. Sebastian’s feet are light on the ground, as if he were dancing. He drifts across the floor with practiced ease, and Blaine feels rooted in return. Sebastian slips in and out of the shadows surrounding the room, as light as a dancer, and when their eyes meet, Sebastian’s eyes are the same green as the potted garden on the dining room wall.

“You must be hungry.” Sebastian’s voice is quiet.

Blaine’s head lifts; he is hungry, but it’s a cerebral hunger, one that lingers even after the physical hunger is sated. But Sebastian is watching him, steadily, and his head burns.

His head tips forward, to avoid Sebastian’s gaze.

He cuts the meat and lifts the bite to his lips, chews, and swallows.

It’s delicious, and something inside of him whispers: _look, Blaine, look_.

But he avoids Sebastian’s gaze, and he stares at the plate until his vision swims and—

* * *

Dalton demands much of Blaine, and he finds himself reaching deeper and deeper into his reserves to give it. He lectures. He runs his seminar. He answers student emails and holds office hours. He stands among death and looks.

Blaine attended Dalton, once; he’d been a college student in these hallowed halls, hoped to be an investigator like his own students now. But those who can, do, and those who can’t, teach. It’s a familiar adage, and it sinks into his skin as he walks from his office to lecture hall, from lecture hall to office, from office to classroom, from classroom to office. From office to crime scene. From crime scene to office. From office to morgue. From morgue to office.

There is a pressure in his ear, and he think it sounds like his ex-fiancé, and the words _you are too much_ , even though he knows that his ex-fiancé is gone. Still in New York, while Blaine is here, in Dalton again.

Dr. Sebastian Smythe stands before him and presses a notepad into his hand. “It is seven-thirty-three, and you are in Westerville, Ohio.”

Blaine finishes, “My name is Blaine Anderson.”

When he draws the asked-for clock, he gives it to Sebastian without looking down.

He looks into Sebastian’s eyes. He _looks_.

* * *

Blaine is used to adversity.

He still carries the old wounds within him; the marriage that never was, the job that never happened, the murders that play themselves out before him. All the world is a stage, and they are all players, and Blaine cannot help but watch as they fall, one by one, puppets with their strings cut, limbs akimbo. He rewinds their deaths, plays them again and again and again and again—

This is a performance. This is a dance. Every movement is precise, controlled. This is a man who is in control. 

The wounds, made pre-mortem. A hand reaches in, cuts out the kidney with practiced ease. Surgical ease. They are familiar hands; Blaine has seen them before.

The hands took the kidneys out, setting them aside (carefully, but carelessly, the way you treat meat).

Meat.

There is something fermenting in the back of Blaine’s mind.

Sebastian’s voice whispers, “You must be hungry,” and Blaine _is_. He has been hungry for so long, for something more than just food. A cerebral hunger, he called it.

 _Companionship_ , Sebastian offers.

Blaine is used to adversity; he has drowned in it. He feels as though he is rising from the water now, as if emerging from a stream, baptized by the running water and clarity.

Sebastian’s steps are silent as he approaches the stage.

Blaine meets Sebastian’s eyes, and he _sees_.

* * *

Their eyes meet, and both of them know.

“Sebastian,” Blaine says, and in a few syllables, he conveys a lifetime of experience.

He sees everything so clearly; the secrets of the tableau are laid out before him. He knows who Sebastian is. He knows what Sebastian is.

His eyes are no longer distant, but focused.

Sebastian stands, straight and tall. “Are you hungry?” Sebastian asks.

He is. He’s always been. He has been looking for so long, and now he sees, he sees more than his past, but he sees the future.

“Then come.” Sebastian’s hand is so close; it would be so easy to take it. Blaine can see it: his hand, in Sebastian’s; his mind with Sebastian’s; his body, his soul, his everything…

But Sebastian is more than a psychiatrist, more than an artist. He’s a murderer, and the evidence is before Blaine, in the meals he’s offered. Kidneys. Loin. He’s been feeding Blaine human flesh. He’s been feeding Blaine the evidence of his kills. The photos spill across his desk, and Blaine looks at them and says _he’s watching_ and when he looks up Sebastian is watching him. He watches.

Blaine looks, and he sees, and he wishes only to close his eyes again.

“I can’t,” Blaine says. He’s a teacher at Dalton. His job is to bring murders to justice. Sebastian is something wholly else. “Sebastian. You killed people. You. I—”

Sebastian’s voice is very gentle. “I understand.”

“I want to,” Blaine whispers back.

“I know,” Sebastian says. “Look at me.”

Blaine’s eyes flutter. His gaze lifts to meet Sebastian’s. He looks. He sees. 

“I am here,” Sebastian says. The blade burns when it slices through his abdomen. Blaine stares down at the blood on his hands, and he sees, he sees, he sees.

* * *

Blaine wakes.

He’s lying in a hospital room; there’s an IV taped to his arm, the quiet chirping of machines, the hum of footsteps outside, voices murmuring back and forth. He closes his eyes and listens for a few breaths, and in the darkness behind his eyelids he hears another breathing.

Sebastian is beside him; his head’s fallen forward in sleep, and Blaine wants to reach out and brush the strands of hair that have fallen forward, sweep them out of Sebastian’s eyes.

He doesn’t.

There is a wound on his gut, bandages wrapped tight. He lays a hand where the wound would be, but he doesn’t feel anything. There is no pain. There is no sensation at all.

He studies Sebastian instead.

The light from the setting sun catches him and turns his skin gold. He glows, with a radiance that belies his darkness. Sitting beside him, Sebastian seems like just Dr. Sebastian Smythe, who could no longer accept that his hands could not save his patients, and turned to psychiatry instead. Sebastian seems like just.

Sebastian is not just.

He is more, and the more Blaine looks, the more he sees. The careful incisions made pre-mortem. The hands that removed organs (offal) with careless ease. He is not a butcher. He is an artist, and murder is his canvas. He is a showman, and his dining table is his stage. He is everything, and Blaine would look at him and paint him as nothing.

The sunlight catches on his hair, and Blaine’s throat is tight at the sight of it. Sebastian, here, beside him. _Companionship_.

He opens his eyes and stops looking. This is not who Sebastian is. This is not where Sebastian is.

He is alone in his hospital room, but he can see what _could_ be.

* * *

While Blaine recovers, he goes to Paris.

He had well-wishers when he was in the hospital; they asked how he was doing, they asked what he was doing, they asked when he would return to work to profiling, to seeing the worst that people could offer.

Blaine’s eyes were open, but he didn’t look at them when he said, “I don’t know.”

He takes time off and goes to Paris instead.

Paris is crowded with tourists regardless of season, and Blaine blends in with them: American, new to the country, barely able to form proper French syllables. He wonders what he’s looking for, in the throng of people, but he knows, already.

Sebastian.

He finds Sebastian at the Palais Garnier. He’s standing on the stage, alone, but with Blaine looks, when Blaine _sees_ , he can see Sebastian in motion, like a dance. Here, he dips. He reaches ( _port de bras_ ) and when he steps ( _pas de bourre_ ) and then his hand is stretching out and there is a scalpel in his hands, and there is a body cooling at his feet. He kneels and cuts, kneels and excises, kneels and brings to bear a heart, and his hands are red with blood, and when he turns towards Blaine ( _promenade_ ), it’s almost too much to bear.

“Sebastian,” Blaine says.

“You came,” Sebastian replies.

Blaine sees; he sees so clearly. And Sebastian is always watching him. “What did you see?” Blaine asks.

He steps forward, toe first and then heel. His back is straight as he walks. He offers the heart, and Blaine takes it before Sebastian says, “You.”

Blaine blinks, once, too quickly to see anything on the back of his eyelids.

Sebastian continues, “Always you, Blaine.”

“I don’t understand.”

“What did you see?” Sebastian asks in response.

Sebastian. All of him. The artist, who looked at the people in the world around him in disdain and sought to remove that stain from the world. The artist who had a dozen mediums, but his most beautiful one was when he was in motion, scalpel in hand, hands covered in blood. Sebastian was made to dance, and how could Blaine ever keep him from dancing?

A hand presses against the wound in his abdomen, and he says, “You.”

His hands are covered with blood. He looks at them, and when he looks up, there is Sebastian, before him.

“Are you hungry?” Sebastian asks.

There is meat in his hands, art before him, and Sebastian at his side. He should be sated. But he looks at Sebastian and sees that he will never be sated, not unless he has Sebastian here, every day, every night, every time, and he says, “Yes. Always.”

And Sebastian takes his hand, his eyes steadily watching Blaine’s every movement, and Blaine doesn’t need to look to see what the next step of their _pas de deux_ will be.

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading! leave a kudo or comment and check out all of the rest of the lovely seblaine week 2020 content!
> 
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